


Lion's Law

by Spotteh



Series: Lion's Law [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Petstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:40:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spotteh/pseuds/Spotteh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Roxy Lalonde. You're a bit of a rising author with a horrible drinking habit and live along in the middle of Nebraska. After finding a young troll, you're life is turned on it's head. Where it's going to take you? You have no idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Late Night Raiders

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Loophole](https://archiveofourown.org/works/527502) by [saccharineSylph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saccharineSylph/pseuds/saccharineSylph). 



> So this story was inspired by the lovely Unwanted Free Ugly Troll by coldhope and Loophole by saccharineSylph. I would highly recommend that you guys read them if you haven't as well as Before I Sleep by HeatedHeadwear (EmptyFeet). They're all well written and beautifully illustrated.  
> On a note more related to the story, there is some minor happenings with animal cruelty simply beclaws that's the nature of the story. If any of you have serious problems with that, I would suggest you not read this. There isn't much but still, I feel like I need to go Kankri a little just to be on the safe side. Rant over. Good bye and enjoy.

 

 

You let out a monsterous belch.

It was late to say the least and you had been drinking the whole night away. Naturally, the burp sends you into a flurry of drunken giggling. Burps were so weird anyways. Like, why would you even call it a burp? It doesn't sound anything like a burp. It's the same with chickens. Chickens don't go bock. They make some other weird sound. You're writing down your thoughts the best you can. You firmly believed in drunk writing. You could actually get some pretty good ideas out of it. Leaning forward, you grab the bottle of vodka to the right of your computer. It's too light in your hand and doesn't make any sound as you swish it around. You lean back a little too far checking to see if there's any in it and, with all the grace your drunken mind possesses, you fall back onto the floor. Laying there you just giggle stupidly. God, you were so drunk. 

After a few long minutes of laughter, you nab the bottle and hoist yourself to your feet. You were a little too drunk to be writing so you shut your computer and teeter away to go dump the empty bottle in the trash. If there were stairs on the way to your trash cans, you would absolutely be dead by now. That was probably why your work place was in that part of the house.   
You jerk open the door, the sharp Nebraska air already slapping you in the face, and make your way to the back of the house where your trash is stashed. As you approach though, something clangs loudly. You stop walking and listen. There's another noise, this one softer. Something was going through your trash! 

"F-Fuck." You whisper to yourself. You don't want to let it know that you were there. What if it was some creepy stalker dude that was looking for your used toothbrush or some shit like that!? The great part about living in the middle-of-nowhere Nebraska was that this was unlikely. The bad part, if it really was some crazy stalker dude, no one was around to hear you. Fortunately, this wasn't your first time dealing with trash raiders. After a raccoon had you cleaning up after it for a month solid, you'd gotten an electric chain linked fence around that end of the house. You remembered to actually turn it on just long enough to keep the raccoon from coming back. 

Another clang and you were ready to take whatever it was on with your vodka bottle raised like a baseball bat. Taking the final few steps, you whirled around the corner, ready to bash some heads. And the culprit behind the trash raiding was indeed a... little girl?? At least, you think so. You only managed to get a quick look at it when it darts away from the trash cans and out of the light. You can hear it bang against the fence in it's blind fleeing. It starts to climb up the fence as well but flops back down to the ground. Your mind is absolutely not comprehending this. Everything is fuzzed over from the liquor and it takes you a moment to grasp what's going on. Oh crap. What if it was some kid? She'd be stuck here and why would she need to dig through your trash. This was starting to smell fishy. Another thump comes from where she ran off and you can only assume that she's failed once more to climb the fence. Another fuzzy though crawls into your head. What if she's hurt? 

You toss the bottle into the already open can and close the distance between you and the girl. Damnit you can't see crap in this light.

"Hello?" You call into the darkness where you saw her disappear. There really wasn't much room in your little trash corner but it's so dark it doesn't matter. "It's ok." You say, slowly lowering yourself to the ground. "I'm nto goin to hurt you."   
<p>Something scuffs in the darkness. Based on how loud the sound was, whatever it was couldn't have been too far from you. With clumsy fingers you fish out your phone and use it as a light. What you see is definitely not what you expected.

 

 

It isn't a little girl at all, just something that looked like it. It's tiny body is curled up defensively, it's little grey legs pressed close to it's chest and twig-ish arms covering it's face. If not for the thin little tail curling around it's knees, the long furry ears, and the horns, you'd have thought it was human. Even with the grey skin! It was a fucking troll! What a troll was doing out here, you had no idea. Trolls were posh little animals those fancy Hollywood types liked to keep as pets. You'd seen them a few times, but only in the media when the tabloids decided to make a big deal of a celebrity getting a new pet. You'd never seen one up close before. 

"Holy shit..." You mutter. The little creature responds your voice and peers out at you from behind her fingers. Did you know troll eyes were yellow? Well. Now you do. And they were really cool looking too! You just stare at the troll for a few minutes in drunken silence before your senses come back to you. 

"Troll... What are- What... How did you get here?" Trolls understood humans right? You thought they did. If they didn't, who cared? You probably wouldn't remember having this conversation in the morning anyways. The little troll lowered her hands and turned the full front of her stare onto you. God she had big eyes. They were a weird dark grey and reflected light like a cat's. 

Now that you get a better look at her, you can see her bony chest through the neckline of the ratty t-shirt she was wearing. Now that you think about it, her arms and legs seem a little too sharp too. Her face was too thin, that's probably why her eyes looked so big. You didn't know shit about trolls but you knew that they weren't supposed to look like that. You can't help but wonder when the last time she had a meal was. It sure would explain why a few things.

"Wait here." You wobble to your feet and run back inside. Hopefully the troll will do what you say and stay there. It takes a few minutes and almost face planting twice before you manage to return with a box of saltines in your hand. It was the first thing you saw so you just went for it. Thankfully the little troll is still there, waiting patiently. Where ever she came from, her owner must have trained her well. You unwrap a stack of crackers, nearly crushing them in the process, and offer one to her. 

She's skeptical at first, constantly glancing at you and the cracker. How she can, you have no idea. Eventually she reaches out reaches out and swipes the thing from you before you can even blink. Damn she was fast. And hungry. She's already eaten the thing in one bite and is staring at the box in your hand like she might fight you for it. You pull out two crackers this time and she grabs them up just as fast. By the tenth cracker, she's no longer shoving them down her throat. It's horrible that she got to this point but you can't help but smile at her. She was cute. Her owners must really miss her, she seemed precious. 

You're totally zoned out when she crawls over to you. It's not until she tugs the tube of crackers out of your hand that you even notice. You let her take them, they were just crackers after all, but she only forces out a few of them before giving the tube back to you. She plants herself in front of where your sitting and nibbles away at them, suddenly looking incredibly tired. 

Naturally, you want to pet her. And nothing stops you. Your rational mind was nice and liquored up so there was no nagging about how she might have fleas or that she might bite you. She tenses as you reach out, stopping mid-snarf. It's not until you begin gently rubbing her soft hair that she relaxes, and even then, she still gives you wary glances in between nibbles. Something about her behavior seems a little off but you're too out of it to notice. A weird thought worms it's way into your head.

"Wanna go inside?" You ask, slowly drifting away. You were drunk and tired. Definitely time for a crash. The troll looked up at you with huge eyes as though you had just given her the moon. Silently, she nods. So you get up and lead her into your house. You don't really register what she's doing but her eyes are as wide as platters. She stops just inside the door and won't go any farther. You just leave her be and head to your couch, the box of crackers still in your hand. You're out before your head hits the cushions.


	2. Cleaning Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You clean get the troll all fixed up and start to find out more about her.

 

Your glorious morning is started with you rolling off the couch. Goddamn it. You don't even try to get up. Your head felt like it had been hit with an anvil, the lights were too loud, and something you ate last night was having a serious battle with your stomac. This was not going to go well.

With a loud groan, you roll over to grab the blanket you keep on the couch for situations just like this. After a few minutes of groping for the stupid thing, you find it and tug it over yourself. Just as it falls over your head, you see a pair of tiny grey paws standing right next to you. Having completely forgotten about the troll, you jerk to an upright position and stare at it. Of course it's darted across the room and behind a chair by then thanks to your sudden movement. You can see it peering out at you from behind the plush white chair. And it looks absolutely horrible.

Now that you have a decent light source, you notice details that you missed last night. She's absolutely filthy and her hair is clumped an matted. Her nails are much too long with ragged edges and some almost missing from breaking. Her skinny figure is much more obvious with bones jutting out just a little too far. But that's not what you notice first. Oh no. The first thing to draw your eye is the shining choke collar around her neck. You can see the dark green bruises from where it's dug into her skin. There are bruises on her arms too that look increasingly like hand prints. Tiny cuts riddle her hands and feet. It's disgusting and horrible, enough to make you forget about your pounding headache. You can feel the bile rising, which is not a good mix when you have a hangover by the way. It takes a moment before you can face the idea. She'd been abused where ever she was before. Abused and neglected. You hadn't been around her for long but seeing that, making that realization, fills you with a ferocious desire to protect her. If you were to ever meet the person who did it to her, you'd- you'd-... Well. You don't know what you'd do. But something would definitely happen. Hurting an animal was not okay. Ever.

You were absolutely going to make sure she got better, screw returning her. Whoever did that didn't fucking deserve her. But first, you needed your head on straight. Getting to your feet, much to your dislike, you wobble back to your bathroom which is unfortunately on the other side of the house. Couldn't you have passed out closer to it? The entire time, the little troll is following behind you, keeping a respectful distance. Getting into the shower is interesting if only because she wanted to go with you. You keep telling yourself that she's just an animal, that it's not that big a deal but between her appearance and that gleam in her eye, she's just too human. Instead, you tell her to stay put. She immediately sits down. You can only hope that she does as she's told and doesn't start ripping things up. That would suck.

One ice cold shower later and you're ready to get to work and turn up your heater! The first step is getting that disgusting collar off. It's actually pretty easy. You keep her still with more crackers while you take it off. It's worse than you thought. The fucking thing had been put on wrong. Instead of just digging into her skin like it was supposed to, this one had been put on in a way that would actually choke her. Like a noose. You can see little scars around her neck from where that exact thing must have happened before. She's completely rigid the entire time, nervously nibbling away at her cracker. You can't imagine why. If someone had done this to you, you sure as hell wouldn't want to get up close and person with the creatures that had done it to you. Instead, she's a perfect angel. You have a feeling the bruises have something to do with her behavior.

The next part, the bath, was much more interesting. You didn't want to use your tub in case she had something but hosing her down outside didn't seem like much of an option either. It was so cold you were afraid that she would get sick from her lack of body fat. You didn't have a big enough bucket to put her either. That left either the sink or Rose's old bathroom. You'd rather not have to wrestle with the faucet on the sink so Rose's bathroom it was. She follows you around as you get things ready, scrounging up wash rags, little bath toys that littered the floor of your own bathroom, tub stickies and other things you think you might need. You even score a bottle of baby shampoo that you had tucked away for some unknown reason. Once the tub is filled up with water, the real challenge begins. It's obvious that she wouldn't take well to just anyone picking her up. You hope that she'd let you since you'd been so nice but when you make a go at her, she's out of the room faster than you can blink. Damn. The first time though, she doesn't go too far. Just around the corner. The second time is a little different. That time she just 'nope's and is on top of a shelf before you even know what to do. She was fast. When you call her down, she just stares at you with her huge eyes, showing no emotion at all. However, you have her greatest weakness against her. Saltine crackers! She'd left the bag when she ran off so you take advantage of it and try luring her down with the crispy goodies. She makes it to the edge of the shelf, her head bobbing up and down like a cat's, trying to determine if she should go for it or not. She chooses not to, instead just staring at you until you give up. A sneaky idea comes to you. Dashing to your pantry, you grab the key ingredient and return to her. She's still there. Quickly, you unscrew the lid of the jar and let the fumes waif up to her. It doesn't take long before she's on the ground again with a spoon full of peanut butter in her mouth. Apparently she's never had it before and has absolutely no idea what to do with the stuff. You trap has succeeded.

Before she knows realizes what just happened, you take of that nasty t-shirt she's wearing and plop her in the tub. At first she tries to jump right back out but after a few minutes the warm water takes effect and she relaxes enough for you to clean her up. The entire time she keeps hold of that peanut butter and you seriously hope she doesn't get sick from it. Without the shirt, you can see even more signs of abuse. Bruises spot her back and there are even some scabbed up cuts. The longer you look at them the more you want to tear the person who did this apart. They were terrible and the little troll was nothing but sweet and polite. She didn't deserve to have been treated like this. It takes a grand total of three baths and two shampooings to get her cleaned up. It was like she'd wallowed in mud or something. Every so often she'd whimper or flinch away from you during the process so you did your best to be gentle. That's probably why it took so long. No way were you going to go scrub crazy with those gnarly bruises on her back. Some jackass put gum in her hair too so after the bath you cut her hair off short. The entire time she doesn't make much noise or struggle which you're finding increasingly distressful. What on earth happened to her? You'll have to ask her later. Assuming she could even talk. You'd heard that trolls could talk like humans but so far, you hadn't seen any proof of that. Maybe there was something wrong with her? You push the thoughts out of your head. It doesn't matter. Clean her up first. Then questions.

Clothes are a bit more difficult. Nothing in the immediate surrounding would even fit her. So you let her wait wrapped up in a towel while you look for something. After digging through your clothes and part of your sister's, it finally hits you. You had a box of Rose's old clothes in the attic! With a shout of glee, you run off to go get them. The little troll follows after you where ever you go, trailing the towel behind her. You have to tell her to stay put when you pull down the latter to the attic. You didn't want her following you up there. It was too dangerous. So, of course, she's exactly where you left her when you bring down the dusty old box. You dump the thing on the couch, coughing from all the dust. Even with the old clothes, it takes a while to pick one for her. Either they were too big, too small, or just didn't seem quite right. At last, you found something that would work for her. An old purple dress with little black cats spotting it. She's absolutely adorable in it.

By the time the whole process is finished it's way past lunch time. You don't have much in your house so sandwiches for lunch! The troll doesn't seem to mind. She just seems happy to be getting enough to eat. You take the chance and start asking her questions.

"Do you have a name?" You ask. She nods in reply, a bit too occupied with tearing into a sandwich to answer. "What is it?" It takes her a moment to answer.

"Nepeta." She's so quiet that you nearly have to ask her again. It's almost like she's afraid of saying the wrong thing and doesn't want to be heard. Which is ridiculous. It's her name. You find it unsettling.

"It's nice to meet you Nepeta." You shove the feeling off. "My name's Roxy." She just nods again. "How old are you? Or do you know?" This time she shakes her head. You take a moment to evaluate her. She looks like she'd be about 6 in human years.

"Where are you from?" You can see her stiffen, like she was remembering something horrible. You're about to tell her that she doesn't have to answer when she starts talking.

"I live on the other side of town." She informs you. "Near the mall." It's quiet for a few minutes. You know where that is. Heck, you'd shopped at the mall plenty of times. It was disgusting that she'd been in such a horrible situation not even an hour away. You'd never really thought much about animal abuse before. Sure they showed those commercials on tv all the time but that didn't have anything to do with you. It always seemed like it was in an entirely different world. It seemed like it would never touch you. And now it was staring you in the face. "Are you going to make me go back, Miss Roxy?" The look on her face sends your stomach into knots. It makes your heart hurt.

"No. No I'm not. And I'll make sure you never go back there again."


	3. Settling in

You pretty much give her free range of the house after that, though she just follows you instead. Since you have no intention of letting her go back to whoever her previous owner was, you spend the rest of the afternoon figuring out what to do with her. You're pretty sure you can't just dump her at the pound either. Even if they took trolls, it just wouldn't feel right. Besides, what if the original owner popped up and got her again? Or someone else got her and couldn't take care of her? Or someone else got her and they ended up being an animal abuser too? No. You were not going to do that. That left you with two options; find a friend to take care of her, or do it yourself. You doubted you could convince any of your friends to take on a troll so you needed to figure out a place for her to stay. You also needed to learn about trolls but you'd save that for later. Instead, you set your sights on cleaning up the guest room. A box seems down right wrong and Rose would kill you if you'd put her in her room. Putting her in your room would also be a very bad idea. With your ungodly sleeping habits, you doubted she'd get the rest she'd needed.

Cleaning up the room is interesting to say the least. Since you never actually had guests, the room had officially unofficially become the dumping grounds for stuff that didn't really have a place. For the most part, you just rearranged stuff. The boxes that were scattered on the floor and on the bed moved to the walls. You thought that with Nepeta following you around, she'd be in the way. Instead, when she saw what you were doing, she joined in to help you. You don't let her do much, she's so skinny you're afraid she'll get crushed by a box she's carrying, but pretty soon all the boxes were carefully lined up against the wall. That left a twin bed, a small dresser and a closet. It wasn't much but it would work. It doesn't take long until you've remade the bed with white sheets and an big dark pink blanket with a heart on it. Once again, Nepeta tries to help out and this time you let her. Making the bed when you're little is the best and she does seem to enjoy it. You spot her watching the sheets when they flutter down after a toss. As soon as she notices you watching her though, the smile disappears. It's good to see the room cleaned up. However, Nepeta's extremely tired afterwards though which concerns you greatly.

"Ta da!" You exclaim, moving in front of her with arms out wide. She stares at you, thoroughly confused. "This is officially your new room!" And then her eyes are the size of saucers. To say she's amazed would be an understatement.

"Really?" She asks, little more than a whisper.

"Of course!" She looks around the room with a whole new perspective. Growing up with a sister several years younger, you've seen some seriously happy kids before. But you've never seen anyone look as happy and surprised as Nepeta did just then. Not even on Rose's first Christmas. She wanders around the room, as though she's trying to store every nook and cranny of it in her memory. Grabbing onto the soft fabric of the blanket, the little troll stares at you like you're a saint.

"I- I've never- I-..." She looks like she's about to cry, she's so happy. She almost does too. "C-Can I hug you?"

Well fuck if that doesn't just melt your heart. "Sure." You say, leaning down. She walks over to you like she's afraid you'll suddenly tell you no. Her body's skinny and tiny and frail. She smells like the forest and feels like hugging another human. Maybe 'pet' isn't the right word for her after all.

 

Over the next few days, you start to learn more about her. First and for most, she loves cats. Not like. She loves them. You regularly catch her acting more like a cat than... whatever she is. She take cat naps a lot, always stretching out afterwards just like a cat would, hands in front and butt in the air. You've learned not to let her catch you watching her. It's absolutely adorable and when she does manage to spot you, she immediately stops and usually looks guilty. She must have been scolded for it at her old home. If you could even call it a home.

Speaking of sleeping habits, she slept buried under a pile of scarves. This one you didn't notice right away since you give her her privacy. It wasn't until you'd stuck your head in her room to get her up that you'd noticed. She was about as graceful a sleeper as you were. Meaning that you found her halfway out of her pile in the full glory of dramatic-arm-flail sleeping position, the scarves tossed around her as though she'd exploded. The only thing that actually remained was that heart blanket which she'd managed to cocoon the lower half of her body in. It's you're laughter that wakes her up. You feel bad when she jerks off the bed in surprise, but that just adds to the humor and laugh harder. The look on her face is even worse as she immediately sets to work gathering up the scarves, apologizing every five seconds along the way. It takes a few minutes but you finally stop laughing long enough to tell her it's ok and that she can keep them if she wants. Nepeta's a little confused at the news but doesn't argue. Instead she just plops them back on her bed and you two get the day started.

She takes up playing some of your video games and you are perfectly ok with that. It gives you time to not only work on editing your drunken creations but to also look up more information about trolls. According to the internet, trolls had different blood colors. Ok, you knew that much but you find out that it actually does mean something. Apparently the different colors coordinated with the body temperature a troll might have as well as some of the sickness that they could get. A low temperatured sea troll had to be treated differently than a hot blooded maroon troll. Nepeta was an olive blood based on the charts you found, putting her pretty much in the middle of everything. You also find out that trolls are supposed to eat a special kind of food made by Crockercorp. You do some online comparison shopping and find out that even on sale, the shit's pretty expensive. Based on how much Nepeta's been eating and how she hasn't been getting sick from eating human food, you decide to skip the Troll-Chow. Even though the trolls in the commercials seem perfectly fine with it, the stuff looks about as appetizing as rat crap. You also look at some of the clothes that could be custom made for trolls, which would made sense since they had tails and gills and shit, and nearly spit out your martini. If the Troll-Chow was expensive, then a person had to be crapping gold to afford fancy clothes for their troll. Nepeta was just going to have to deal with more of Rose's hand-me-downs cause no way in hell can you afford that. You do end up taking her to Walmart the next day to get some clothes though. You expected to get some flack for it when you visited the store with her but at most you get some curious questions and that's it. You can ignore the stares and Nepeta doesn't even seem phased by the attention so the trip goes off without a problem. By the time the two of you make it home, Nepeta has a whole new array of clothes that actually fit her. Mostly just pants and shirts, many of which sport a cat theme or are green, and one or two dresses. She also asked you for a blue winter hat with a cat face on it and damn it if she didn't melt your heart when she did. She was going to be one hell of a con artist once she got over her initial hesitation around you. While you're there, you do a little grocery shopping too and stock up on some kid friendly snack foods. You let her pick out what she wants to eat and, after some prodding, she goes to town. You have to tell her no when she tries to load up the shopping cart with the entire candy isle but other than that, she doesn't go too overboard. She immediately grabs up anything with a cat on it, including three boxes of Frosted Flakes, animal crackers, iced animal crackers, and a box of some weird japanese candy she found in the asian section. Were you spoiling her a little? Probably. But after living where she had, she deserved a little spoiling.

Unfortunately, you notice something new by the second week she's there. At first you thought it was just some weird troll thing you hadn't found out about yet, despite having read hours worth on the internet about it, but now you're starting to think it's something else. She's started coming out of her room later and later and it's as though she's lost her energy. Even though she's never gone flying through your house like a bat out of hell, you can tell she's very energetic. She was always perfectly behaved but you could tell she wanted nothing more than to go outside and run around for hours. When you offered to play tag with her the other day, she hesitated but you could see it in her eyes that she wanted to tear out of the house that very instant and play. This little escapade ended up with your horribly out of shape ass on the ground and her freaking out because she was afraid of getting in trouble. You had to explain that you were just a fat ass and after that she slowed down considerably when running from you. Now though, now she practically looks dead. You find her on sitting on the couch just staring at the wall, or standing in the middle of the room as though she's forgotten why she's there. She's started eating less too, which worries you even more. That girl could go through food like nothing you'd ever seen. But that's not what got you into an absolute frenzy. Nepeta let you pick her up. The entire time she'd been with you, she'd never let you do that. Even when you went to Walmart, she either walk along beside you or, when she wanted in the cart, she'd just climb in herself, something that seriously freaked you out the first two or three times she did it. And the one time you'd managed to sneak up on her and pick her up, she flipped the fuck out and nearly took a bite out of you. When you saw her going in for the attack, you'd dropped her and both of you had an apologizing contest.

It was late and both of you were still up. You, of course, were just getting into another drunk writing session and had come downstairs to get more whiskey. You'd already had enough to get yourself nice and tipsy and Nepeta was just standing there in the middle of the room once again. Being the genius drunk you were, you decided it would be a good idea to sneak up behind her and give her a little scare since she had been so lifeless lately. You shouldn't have been able to sneak up on her, you were about as quiet as someone tipsy could be, but Nepeta didn't move as you came closer. When you were close enough, you stuck, easily sliding her off her feet and up into the air in your arms. You pulled her close and gave her a good long hug. Nepeta struggled against you a little but after just a few minutes she fell still and just let you hold her. That snapped you out of some of you drunken fuzziness. She should have tried to attack you or pushed you away, it wasn't like she wasn't strong enough, or something. This was wrong. Very, very wrong. Panic is starting to get to you. She's too hot in your arms. It's like the life has been sucked out of her and her normally green tinted face has paled into a flat grey. And even though her eyes are open, they're glazed over with fever. Immediately, you shift her in your arms so you only have to use one arm to carry her, grab the phone and phone book and head to her room. You've got her under her usual pile of scarves with her blanket on the bottom when you get ahold of the vet's office. It was the first one on the list in the phone book and you can only hope that they're still open. Your hope it dashed when you're met with an answering machine. You systematically go through the list, only to be met again and again by an answering machine. It was too late, almost midnight now, but at last you finally reach someone at an animal hospital. The girl on the other end of the line is obviously tired but she's human and that's good enough for you.

"Hi, I have a troll and sh-" The lady cuts you off right then and there.

"I'm sorry ma'am. We don't treat trolls here." She was perfectly polite but it was still irritating. You're Nepeta was sick and needed help.

"But she's very sick and needs to be seen as soon as possible. Please?" You can hear the lady sigh into the phone. Apparently it was too late for this shit. In her mind at least.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. We can't do it. There is however a smaller clinic that will take trolls not far from where we're located. They're not open right now but you may be able to get in tomorrow morning." Damn it. You'd wanted to get her looked at before then. But on the other hand, Nepeta obviously wasn't in the right condition to travel and it was late, way too late for a trip to the vet's.

"Can you tell me where they are?"

"Of course ma'am. Do you have something to write this down with?" Her tone implied that she didn't want to deal with you the next morning so you'd better write it down now. After some fumbling around, you manage to scrounge up a pen and piece of paper. "Alright. It's called Breath of Life at 108 Page St. The phone number is 864-8726."

"Thank you. Thank you so much." You finish up writing the number, seriously hoping that you'll be able to read it in the morning.

"Of course, ma'am." After a long pause she adds, "Good luck with your troll," and hangs up. You just stare at the phone in your hand for a few moments. What you were hoping for, you don't really know. You glance as Nepeta sleeping under her pile of scarves. Her little face is screwed up tight, undoubtably from fever nightmares. Gosh you just want to bundle her up and make it all go away for her. She's had such a sucky life already, she deserved better. It's not like you were going to get anymore writing done tonight so you settle down in the chair you'd brought in. Seems like you were going to stay here all night.

**Author's Note:**

> Due to the fact that I intend to add illustrations to this one, it is going to take me a bit longer to upd8. Please keep that in mind. Thank you!


End file.
